


still spinning

by Areiton



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Found Family, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark are Siblings, Post-Endgame, Thanksgiving, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21597001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: He’s been here for a little over twelve hours, been back for months and he still has no idea where he belongs.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 204





	still spinning

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Thanksgiving, lovelies!

The world keeps spinning and the truth is--he’s grateful. 

Grateful that May is alive and falling in love, happier than she’s been since before Ben died. 

Grateful that Mr. Stark is healing, putting himself back together after the battle and wielding the gauntlet. 

Grateful that he is alive. 

But there is this too--the world never stopped spinning. 

He hung, suspended in nothing, and crashed back to life, to a world that moved on. 

And being  _ here _ , in the quiet calm of Mr. Stark’s cabin, the water icing over and sun just peeking through the trees--nothing drives home how much the world kept spinning and how much he was left behind, as being here. 

There’s a tent off to the side, a tricycle tipped on it’s side and a dirty stuffed animal. 

_ She  _ is evidence of the world spinning. 

Mr. Stark invited him here, almost begged him to come for the dinner Pepper was putting on. And after everything--he didn’t have the heart to refuse. He  _ missed _ Mr. Stark, is the thing. 

But he’s been here for a little over twelve hours, been  _ back _ for months and he still has no idea where he belongs. 

~*~ 

His fingertips are numb when he hears the door open behind him. “Do you want coffee?” Pepper asks, low and warm, sleep rusted, and he twitches, looking back at her. She’s wrapped in a thick robe, feet shoved in fluffy slippers and hair a mess of red--she looks nothing like the powerful put together CEO he’s always seen and been slightly terrified of. She looks so soft and warm, she reminds him of May and he wants to go to her, burrow into her warmth and let her take care of him. 

She looks, he realizes, abruptly, like a mother. 

It’s as disconcerting as hearing Morgan call Tony  _ daddy. _

“Sweetheart?” she asks, concerned and he remembers she asked him a question. 

“Um, yes, please.” 

She smiles and steps back into the house and the silence settles over them, a quiet hush that feels like a held breath, like the world is waiting. 

It’s not. 

It’s an illusion. 

The world didn’t wait before and it hasn’t in the months since he returned and it won’t now, with a family that doesn’t feel like  _ his _ , like he  _ belongs.  _

Mr. Stark thinks he does. He knows that. It’s why he’s here, after all. 

But thinking it doesn’t make it true. He thinks, maybe, if it did, he wouldn’t be so lost still. 

~*~ 

Little feet come from behind him this time, and he tenses, unconscious. 

She sits down with all the awkward lack of grace a five and half year old can possess, and pushes a cup at him, face furrowed in a concentrated frown. 

There’s a lid on it, and she pokes it, smiling in smug satisfaction as it crawls away into nothing and she says, “Daddy made it. Nannis. So I wouldn’t spill.” 

He stares at it for a moment, this cup of coffee, longing for something he can’t quite name curling in his gut. 

He did this. Built tech for this little girl, something that was special and just between them, something he designed just to keep her safe. 

How many times had she carried him coffee, crawled into his lap in the lab and watched the nanites crawl away while she was held careful and warm against his side. 

It tugs at him and he doesn’t want to drink this coffee, doesn’t want to sit here. 

He doesn’t want to see all the ways that he’s been replaced, the ways that Tony no longer needs him. 

“Daddy missed you,” Morgan says, quietly. “When you were gone.”

Gone. Dead. It’s all the same, isn’t it? 

“He was sad,” she continues, toes digging into the wood and he thinks she should have socks. “He smiles more now--especially when you come see us.” 

“Maybe he didn’t miss me,” Peter says, and Morgan twists to look at him, pale face and messy hair in the morning. “Maybe he missed everyone we lost.” 

He forgets sometimes, that Morgan is Tony’s child, and Pepper’s and brilliant. Her expression twists, into something impatient and disbelieving and she says, “I didn’t like you.” 

It makes him startle, and she scowls at the sloshed coffee. “He would tell me stories, about Spider-man and adventures. About how smart you were and how brave and he was always so  _ sad. _ I hated you for making Daddy sad.” 

“Mor--”

“I don’t, though.” 

“Why?” 

“Uncle Rhodey says daddy has special people. People he loves--just a few, and he doesn’t know how to not love them. You’re one of his special people.” 

She smiles at him, small and hopeful. “I think that makes you one of mine, too?” 

He doesn’t know how to answer that. Doesn’t think he  _ can _ . So he says, “Let’s go inside, munchkin. Your toes.” 

She scrambles up and catches his hand, hers tiny and soft inside his and he’s careful, careful, mindful of his strength, and she tugs him inside. 

Tony is leaning against Pepper, his face pressed to her throat and his eyes are bright and his smile is soft, as he looks at them. 

At  _ them. _

There’s the scent of coffee in the air and cinnamon rolls and later the team would descend, all of them, but for this moment, a single suspended instant in time--it was just them. 

Just him and Morgan, linked by small fingers pulling and caught in his gaze, and Peter exhaled. 

The world kept spinning, and maybe he didn’t know where he belonged anymore. 

But for just a moment, while Tony smiles at him and Morgan claims him and Pepper lingers, quiet and warm--he thinks maybe. 

Maybe he still belongs here. If he wants to. 

Maybe he always did and they have been waiting for him to settle back into the space that they held for him, open and waiting, while the world turned without him. 

He looks at Mr. Stark, at the fondness and hope in his eyes, the patient stillness, and thinks--if he bolts, this will still be waiting. 

For as long as he needs, to feel settled and safe--this will be waiting. 

Maybe, though--maybe he doesn’t want to wait anymore. 

He takes a breath and catches Morgan by the waist, swings her up to his shoulders while she shrieks and says, “Wanna help me frost the cinnamon rolls, munchkin?”

Beyond the walls of the cabin and the brightness of the morning--the world kept spinning. 


End file.
